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Pre-school Program St. Peter’s has a wonderful pre-school program for children as young as two years old through Kindergarten age. It’s designed for children who are comfortable away from their parents and ready to participate in the program. If your child is not that independent yet but you would like them to participate, you’re more than welcome to attend the pre-school sessions with your child. In fact, we would love to have more parent participation! Currently, the class is led by Candace O’Shea with the occasional help of other parents.
The curriculum covers the whole gamut of Christian Life and involves a lot of active play with the children baptizing baby dolls, serving communion with bread and ‘wine’ and singing lots of songs. We also read books and play with puppets. A snapshot of what we cover includes: - The Old Testament stories
- The Ten Commandments
- God’s and Jesus’ love for us
- The life of Jesus
- How we follow Jesus
- The miracles of Jesus
- Who is God
- What is God
- The sacraments
- How church is different from school
- How do you talk to God
For parents interested in helping out, we have a wealth of materials available and the lessons plans are all ready to go. The children are like little sponges and come prepared to love everything that you do in class. You only have to bring your love and enthusiasm to make a difference. Talk with Candace if you’d like to volunteer.
Sunday School
Children are a priority in the life of our parish and we are committed to ensuring that they experience a loving and safe environment at St. Peter's. Every Sunday at 9:45 a.m. we offer a flourishing Sunday School! School begins with a prayer circle led by Father Perry.
Children then gather in age-appropriate classes that always include a lively discussion among all the children, as we seek to make connections between the Bible passages and our everyday lives. The children then experience a variety of activities, crafts, games, etc., each designed to reinforce what they’ve learned for the day. At the Offertory, the children join their families in church for worship and the Holy Communion. During the year, the children participate in several activities that reach out to persons in need such as: -- organizing fundraisers to purchase mosquito netting to prevent malaria in developing countries -- supporting the Bishop's Fund for Children; and -- adopting a child in Bolivia through the Christian Children's Fund. All children are welcome, regardless of whether they are members of our parish. If children have friends, neighbors, or relatives visiting, we encourage them to attend. There's always room for more!
Kids Choir --- And Then Some! Several times a year the children come together to participate in various parts of the worship service. Children are encouraged to take part in the liturgy as servers, readers, offering presenters, and ushers/greeters. Young people offer various music selections for our worship, and the music for the day includes songs they have learned in class.
Helping Kids in Crisis Through our Outreach Commission, we reach out to children and families in crisis in many ways. This year, twenty percent of our annual budget will go to outreach, and we try to increase that percentage every year. We have adopted a social worker through Covenant to Care, and we help her year-round by providing money and materials to give to children who need them. Each year at Christmas time we adopt a family in need, and continue to support them through the following year. As a parish, we also support AHM (Andover, Hebron, Marlborough) Youth Services, an organization dedicated to supporting kids who need help, or just something to do.
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